Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works eBook

Two hours later by his watch, Thomas Gradman, stirring
in his swivel chair, closed the last drawer of his
bureau, and putting into his waistcoat pocket a bunch
of keys so fat that they gave him a protuberance on
the liver side, brushed his old top hat round with
his sleeve, took his umbrella, and descended.
Thick, short, and buttoned closely into his old frock
coat, he walked toward Covent Garden market.
He never missed that daily promenade to the Tube for
Highgate, and seldom some critical transaction on
the way in connection with vegetables and fruit.
Generations might be born, and hats might change, wars
be fought, and Forsytes fade away, but Thomas Gradman,
faithful and grey, would take his daily walk and buy
his daily vegetable. Times were not what they
were, and his son had lost a leg, and they never gave
him those nice little plaited baskets to carry the
stuff in now, and these Tubes were convenient things—­still
he mustn’t complain; his health was good considering
his time of life, and after fifty-four years in the
Law he was getting a round eight hundred a year and
a little worried of late, because it was mostly collector’s
commission on the rents, and with all this conversion
of Forsyte property going on, it looked like drying
up, and the price of living still so high; but it
was no good worrying—­” The good God
made us all”—­as he was in the habit
of saying; still, house property in London—­he
didn’t know what Mr. Roger or Mr. James would
say if they could see it being sold like this—­seemed
to show a lack of faith; but Mr. Soames—­he
worried. Life and lives in being and twenty-one
years after—­beyond that you couldn’t
go; still, he kept his health wonderfully—­and
Miss Fleur was a pretty little thing—­she
was; she’d marry; but lots of people had no
children nowadays—­he had had his first
child at twenty-two; and Mr. Jolyon, married while
he was at Cambridge, had his child the same year—­gracious
Peter! That was back in ’69, a long time
before old Mr. Jolyon—­fine judge of property—­had
taken his Will away from Mr. James—­dear,
yes! Those were the days when they were buyin’
property right and left, and none of this khaki and
fallin’ over one another to get out of things;
and cucumbers at twopence; and a melon—­the
old melons, that made your mouth water! Fifty
years since he went into Mr. James’ office,
and Mr. James had said to him: “Now, Gradman,
you’re only a shaver—­you pay attention,
and you’ll make your five hundred a year before
you’ve done.” And he had, and feared
God, and served the Forsytes, and kept a vegetable
diet at night. And, buying a copy of John Bull—­not
that he approved of it, an extravagant affair—­he
entered the Tube elevator with his mere brown-paper
parcel, and was borne down into the bowels of the
earth.

VI

SOAMES’ PRIVATE LIFE

On his way to Green Street it occurred to Soames that
he ought to go into Dumetrius’ in Suffolk Street
about the possibility of the Bolderby Old Crome.
Almost worth while to have fought the war to have
the Bolderby Old Crome, as it were, in flux!
Old Bolderby had died, his son and grandson had been
killed—­a cousin was coming into the estate,
who meant to sell it, some said because of the condition
of England, others said because he had asthma.